If you’re talking about one ‘toy’ or piece of play equipment that just hasn’t disappeared from New Zealand backyards over the past 50 years, it’s undoubtedly the trampoline.  Seemingly immune to trends, kiwi kids simply LOVE to bounce!

In typical NZ Dad fashion, my first trampoline was made by my father who was an engineer.  He carried me downstairs to our rumpus room at the time, where he threw me, blindfolded, onto the tramp.  We replayed this gorgeous surprise when our eldest son turned 3 and we’ve been trampoline owners ever since!

Our tramp has become the outside go-to for the boys and their friends over the past few years.  More hours than I can remember have been spent on the black mat, in the sun, in the rain, inventing games and practising wrestling maneuvers lol (remember this post where I made Ethan a wrestling dummy to play with on the tramp?).

But, if we‘re being really honest, times are changing.  Unfortunately the pull of screen time has become more and more attractive, especially for my older son.

Thank goodness the resilient trampoline is NOT going down without a fight!  Global innovators in active play, Springfree Trampoline have already given the humble tramp a 21st century makeover and now they’re taking on the tablets with tgoma.

Take Gaming Outside & Make It Active!

We work pretty hard as a family to show our kids a healthy lifestyle and the easiest way to do this (in my opinion) is to exercise with your kids and do it regularly.

We’ve been loving the tech/tramp integration that tgoma has brought to our yard.  It’s super easy to set-up, we’ve all created profiles on the app and now we can track exactly how many bounces we’ve done (+ jump time, energy burnt, height jumped etc).  We can monitor our global rankings against other tgoma jumpers – I LOVE this, hello Miss Competitive! – and participate in Trans-Tasman battles playing the Fruitants game.

I’ve picked our 5 favourite ways we’ve been using our tgoma this week, I’m sure this will change as we all find our favourite apps and challenges – it was pretty hard to narrow it down to these actually!

1. FreeBounce – This app was a surprise to me, as my initial perception of tgoma was that it was strictly a gaming platform for trampolines.  This isn’t the case at all.  FreeBounce doesn’t detract from traditional fun play on your trampoline at all – it simply tracks the time, number of jumps, kj’s burned and height jumped while playing or working out.  Kind of like a Fitbit for your tramp!  The boys have their own games they have invented and like to simply ‘play’ on the tramp so using FreeBounce lets them do that, while still tracking exercise time – great for my big boy who is very quantitative!  Nixon couldn’t care less of course lol!
2. Alien Stomp – This is Nixon’s pick.  He can sometimes be a little hesitant about initiating individual play on the trampoline but this game is perfect for getting him out there and jumping!  His enthusiasm is definitely there and his developing gross motor skills will be benefitting so much as he learns to control his bounces around the mat and stomp the aliens! (Ethan is also quite partial to Alien Stomp just quietly!)
3. tgoma Fit – this is my fave guys.  6 minute workout blasts that kill!  Completing all 5 in a row is #GOALS.  The Blogging / Mummy combo means that whenever my ‘Boss’ Nixon lets me I’m at my desk frantically trying to write.  As such, I’m loving sneaking outside and punching out a couple of guided workouts throughout the day – it’s getting my blood flowing, boosting my energy and helping with productivity and exercise motivation.  Totally hooked!
4. Stickers! – Nix and I like to play this together.  There is no goal, aim or rules, each bounce on the mat simply places a sticker in the corresponding place on the screen.  We actually just spent 20 minutes bouncing around laughing at our ‘splats’, ‘kitty cats’ and ‘squiggles’.  This is simple fun, done right.  A lot of parents definitely struggle with imaginative play with young kids, games like this give you and your child a starting point and the tools and trust me, it’s easy to take it from there!
5. 2048 – Dave, Ethan and I have been playing this addictive number game on our phones for well over a year now so it’s been really fun to take it outside and get both our brains and our body’s working!  This is another great challenge where you can keep an eye on the leaderboard and get competitive with the family!

Our first two weeks with our tgoma Springfree Trampoline have been so much fun.  I haven’t been this excited about a tramp since I was a little girl!  I have a feeling that we will discover more and more ways we love to use tgoma together over the coming months and years.  

As an early-adopter myself, I love new tech and this definitely has a flow-on effect within our family.  The pervasive nature of digital devices and the roles they play within the modern family isn’t going to diminish, so I’m particularly stoked to see innovators like Springfree channelling tech in a way that provides multi-layered benefits to both kids and their parents.

Win an iPad Mini 9 with tgoma Springfree!

This prize is ahhh-mazing so you’re going to have to work for it! – 10 jumps on the spot NOW!

Just joking.

What you DO have to do, is head to the Springfree website > click here, read all about tgoma, then come back and comment below with one of the many features of the tgoma app.  Easy right?

Stay tuned for the next tgoma Springfree post for a 2nd chance to get in the draw.  You can enter as many times as you like in separate comments.

Competition closes 10/7/16 @ 10pm.  NZ residents only.